MS Dhoni To Miss West Indies Tour, Makes Himself Unavailable For The Series: Report
Jul 17, 2019 at 10:32 AM
Former Indian captain MS Dhoni will not be travelling with the Indian team to West Indies as he has made himself unavailable for the tour, a report in TOI suggests. There is no clarity whether he will announce his retirement. Although the team will move away from him in the West Indies where for the first time Rishabh Pant looks set to be the first-choice wicketkeeper.
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He has been touted to be the successor of Dhoni in all the formats of the game. While he has already become the top-choice wicket-keeper in the longest format of the game, Rishabh hasn’t got a consistent run in limited-overs cricket.
He wasn’t initially a part of World Cup squad as well and was called up as a replacement of Shikhar Dhawan, who got injured during World Cup match against Australia. Rishabh played four matches in the tournament where he scored 116 runs.
With a T20I World Cup set to be played next year, selectors will have to give a consistent run to the youngster and he looks set to don the gloves in the limited-overs format as well.
It is not clear whether Dinesh Karthik will retain his place in the squad but even he remains to be part of the team, it will be Rishabh who will do the wicketkeeping job. Karthik had leapfrogged Rishabh to be the part of the World Cup squad with his experience.
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It will be the latter who will be given backing in white-ball cricket and will remain part of the team on a consistent basis. Rishabh has already excelled in the longest format of the game, after making his Test debut last year against England.
He has scored 696 runs in nine Test matches at 49.71. Rishabh had a great tour of Australia, where he scored 350 runs in four matches, second-most in the series.
Although he will be kept on his toes in upcoming series against West Indies as Wriddhiman Saha is set to make his comeback in the Test squad but might have to sit out as Rishabh should retain his place behind the wickets.